All City of Adelaide buildings, operations, services powered by 100% renewable energy deal from mid 2020

Street lighting would be among the City of Adelaide services to be powered by 100% renewable energy from 2020.

All City of Adelaide operations and council-owned plants would use 100% renewable energy under a deal with Flow Power  starting July 2020. Flow Power supply all city council’s energy needs from a mix of locally generated wind and solar power, including from the Clements Gap wind farm in the state’s mid-north, and new solar farms on the Eyre Peninsula and in the southeast.

These new solar projects – Streaky Bay and Coonalpyn Solar Farms – were taken over by Flow from Tetris Energy that has been active in the South Australia market, developing projects and signing power purchase agreements.

Adelaide lord mayor Sandy Verschoor, said the agreement with Flow Power was part of the city’s commitment to becoming carbon neutral and would slash its operational emissions by around 50%. The deal would deliver electricity cost savings of around 20% compared to the city’s most recent energy contract. All of City of Adelaide’s corporate and community buildings, council event infrastructure, electric vehicle chargers, barbecues in the parklands, water pumps, street lighting and traffic will be powered by renewable electricity.

Although South Australia remained an overall leader in renewable energy,  Adelaide City Council’s commitment to 100 per cent renewables –a first for any local government in the state – it was was slightly behind a similar move by Sydney (October 2019) and Melbourne (January 2018) city councils. Other local government in those states have also switched to renewables – or at least committed to do so – including the former coal hub of Newcastle in New South Wales and the City of Moreland in Victoria.